Progressive Muslims: Friends of Imperialism And Neocolonialism
(Or: The blog formerly known as Progressive Muslim Union North America Debate)

Thursday, November 11, 2004

The Media, The "bad" and "good" Muslims... and more

Salaams all:

I know that I have been quiet on this issue and on the list in general, but I have been closely following the issue. Various folks on the NPM list has done a good job in identifying many of the problems with PMU. I will just add a few more points, and please forgive me if there is some overlap:

1) One of the things that bothered me right from the beginning was the obsession by PMU folks of getting media coverage for this group. Even before its official inauguration as an organization on Eid, PMUNA has received ample publicity in the media, and we can expect much more publicity, and publicity in more of the major establishment media, after Eid. I thought to myself, what genuine dissidents, particularly in the heart of an Empire where the parameters of debate are kept so narrow, receive this type of coverage. The answer is simple: practically none. Why don't we see people associated with Z, like Chomsky or Mike Albert or Robert Jensen or the international socialist organization, etc. and the issues they raise covered in the media. The conclusion is simple: a dissident must be doing something wrong if she is receiving such coverage from the mainstream establishment media of the empire. At times, PMU folks have sounded like they have some fetish for as much media coverage as possible, which wouldn't be a negative thing in a decent society that did without the undemocratic and concentrated corporate media of the US. Knowing that the US media is on the search for nice, moderate, even "progressive" muslim reformers, folks like us need to be extra careful in these matters, again for reasons of the possibility of co- optation (as farid and others have mentioned).

If we assume that Ahmed and PMUNA are aware of the problems of media (and its specific position vis-a-vis "bad" and "good" moderate Muslims) in the heart of the empire, then I can't help feeling as if they are engaged in something entirely unethical. For "progressives," the general aim has been understood to be one that undermines power and authoritarian structures, either at the political, social, or economic level. From this it follows that the reliance on the US media, certainly a core ideological institution of US imperial power, is to effectively depend one form of power (a very powerful one in fact) to try to confront another form of power ("islamic orthodoxy," a far weaker power). Whether or not Ahmed or Omid have this intention or not is irrelevant. Right now, in a situation where Muslims in the US do have their backs against the wall and are being told to get their act together or else, showcasing oneself as the "progressive muslims" amongst the herd of reactionaries is to have the practical effect of using the imperial ideological system for one's "progressive" purposes. This might undermine one form of "power" (Muslim institutions such as ISNA, male- female mosque dynamics IN THE US), but strengthens a far more powerful propaganda system that's not shy of using force and violence. The point is simple: as progressives activists, the goal is not to use one power structure against another one (that one despises more); rather, it is to undermine all such power structures.

2) It seems like some who've otherwise been consistently anti- imperialist have demonstrated a softness for the liberal/secularist defenders of the Empire. I remember a while ago when I spoke about the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan, Tarek bitterly condemned their collaboration with US imperialism in Pakistan. However, in this instance, he's able to take these Hassans lightly and joke about them and give a de facto acceptance of their presence on the board. Is the criterion NOW only one having liberal social views, such as on homosexuality, middle class pluralism, etc. It was once said that if one takes a sample of the views of corporate CEOs and also of most of the people working in the mainstream US media, their views will be pretty liberal, on very narrow social issues of course (what are also called "wedge" issues here in the U.S.; they are used to divide people by the so-called family values rhetoric, as Itrath mentioned recently). However, does that in any way affect their views on empire, both its militarism and capitalist exploitation? Not at all. And so, ultimately we reduce everything to putting such and such individual on trial for such backward social views, rather than putting the system on trial. Our venom is then really saved for the conservative/backward Pakistani or Arab who has recently migrated, rather than a system that continues to impoverish those countries from which these people are forced to flee.

3) I take issue with an implicit "othering" of non-North Americans. The arrogance of calling this a North American organization, yet inviting Muslims from all over the world has already been mentioned. There is the claim made that the privileges of freedom and liberties accorded to American Muslims will be used for good purposes and ends. This, I think, really translates into support for american discursive domination of the world. If you are privileged in the first place, privileged for not having to face bombings, or curfews, or starvation, etc., your first bloody objective ought to be to challenge that privilege day in and day out, and refuse to be a moderate, decent voice when you know your government is a key factor behind the suppression of millions of your sisters and brothers throughout the Muslim world. Unfortunately, there is the assumption that the brave new progressive islamic world will be ushered in america. The struggles of AIDS activists and folks like Farish Noor and Chandra Muzaffar in Malaysia, of Asghar Ali Engineer and others in India, in Iran, of Na'eem Jeenah and others in South Africa, etc., ALL OF IT is ignored as if this is not taking place since it does not receive the type of media that a group of western activists get for setting up a group of a handful of people.

4) We really need to emphasize that the principal contradiction in the world today is NOT talibanism, "islamic fundamentalism," wahhabism, etc. The hundreds of millions who suffer and die from AIDS, poverty, starvation, lives of boredom and rote work, meaningless and commodified human relationships, etc. are not the victims of wahabbism. "Islamism" is just another symptomatic reaction to the fundemantalism of a modernity/progress narrative that inflicts only misery and malaise on the social majorities of the world. Rather, the main culprit is a world system of empire which is relentless in its efforts to destroy any and all remaining social spaces for liberation, in all human spheres of life (political, economic, cultural). This is the reduction of human beings, of ihnsan, to homo oeconomicus (economic man). Aspects of kinship/gender and race/nationality are all exploited to serve the cause of the ever-expanding imperial profit machine. Although i am hesitant to use this marxist formula of one specific principal contradiction, for some reason, during these times, it seems difficult not to.

5) As some have said, it may be time to dump the term progressive in front of Islam or Muslim for something that refers to liberation or its derivative. Friends from the UK disliked the term progressive islam when i first mentioned it to them. Reflecting on how we need to rethink our approach to the adjective we use (if any) before Islam (which is probably unnecessary and unwise; but perhaps necessary before "Muslim") is important. However, let us not beat this issue ad nauseum and let our adjectives and descriptions, in other words simply language, become substitutes for concrete praxis from which languages and discourses of liberation will emerge themselves.

6) One thing which all of this points to is a healthy skepticism that we should have about organizations that emerge out of no context of mass movement or struggle. There are tons of "progressive Muslim" NGOs cropping up throughout the Muslim world, promising to bring "enlightened moderation" (as pakistani military man musharraf calls it) to the masses through their intellectual forums and bad pamphlets. It has become a racket and the corruption of the worst kind, where many of these enlightened muslim intellectuals act as the intermediaries between the civilized west and its generous funding through USAID and Asia Foundation, and the mass of Muslim uncouths who these intellectuals are hired to tame. In many ways, my bitter criticism of this ngo/think tank model extends to somewhat less harsher criticism of the vanguardist approaches of parties and other organizations. The peoples movements in the world will give voice to themselves, and will also be shown solidarity by others who are privileged BUT are using that privilege to expose the complicity of their own governments in pepertuating the underdevelopment of the majority of the world. But some folks (either the communist party, or PMU or whoever) already setting the agenda for them and getting the glory and fame on the backs of their struggles, i don't think so. Come to think of it, all of the decent organizations in north america, like global exchange or rivers first, etc. focus almost entirely on how the bloody empire is ravaging the two-third world (the first on issues of trade, debt, etc., the latter providing crucial support and solidarity to activists in places like india against western-supported big dam projects).

Finally, let me just mention something that will make us think. I'm working with various Muslim Student Associations in the DC area on an Islam and worker justice conference, where huge muslim communities will interact with unions, etc. Some of the leading organizers (various female students and Imams) are very cool and progressive, yet they have never heard of these progressive Muslims nor have they read any of the progressive Muslim thinkers we are fond of. They are just DOING IT, working with organizations such as jobs for justice, etc.

Our approach not TO the struggle but IN the struggle in these scandalous times is crucial, and should not be taken lightly.